Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
0.09UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.09UNLIKELY
Fear
0.07UNLIKELY
Joy
0.61LIKELY
Sadness
0.21UNLIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.6LIKELY
Confident
0.47UNLIKELY
Tentative
0UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.89LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.9LIKELY
Extraversion
0.23UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.65LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.74LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
Chapter five places us well into the book of Hebrews now.
We are past all the introduction stuff.
We have looked in the last two weeks at the opening proclamations—chapter one was all about Jesus being fully divine as the Son of God, chapter two was all about Jesus being fully human as a brother to us.
Today we get into the part of Hebrews that moves on from telling us about who Jesus is, and focuses in on telling us about what Jesus does.
On the one hand, we see a picture of what Jesus does by reading the gospels.
It is in the gospels that we see Jesus teaching and healing and performing miraculous signs.
It is the gospels that tell us about the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, and the commissioning of the apostles to become the New Testament church.
But Hebrews takes a different direction altogether in explaining for us what it is Jesus does.
Let me tug in a little bit of doctrine here to help make sense of this.
Look at Heidelberg Catechism Q31.
Q.
Why is he called “Christ,”
meaning “anointed”?
A. Because he has been ordained by God the Father
and has been anointed with the Holy Spirit
to be
our chief prophet and teacher
who fully reveals to us
the secret counsel and will of God concerning our deliverance;
our only high priest
who has delivered us by the one sacrifice of his body,
and who continually pleads our cause with the Father;
and our eternal king
who governs us by his Word and Spirit,
and who guards us and keeps us
in the freedom he has won for us.
activity of Jesus in three categories: prophet, priest, and king
Book of Hebrews shapes for us how the events and activities of Jesus have a priestly role
Our theology breaks down the activity of Jesus into three categories: prophet, priest, and king.
The book of Hebrews is really only interested in one of these categories—that of Jesus fulfilling the function of priest.
This is the perspective we will be focusing on as we continue through Lent, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday.
The Book of Hebrews is going to start shaping for us how these events and activities of Jesus have a priestly role.
Let’s get into that today with these verses from chapters four and five which tell us something about what it means that Jesus serves as our priest, and why that matters for us today.
The first ten verses of chapter five outline this for us.
What does it even mean that Jesus is a priest?
Take a closer look at the verses of this passage in Hebrews and see how the author lays this out for us to see.
It is one of those structures we have noted many times before in the Bible as a mirror outline.
It looks something like this.
A - vs 1: commitment of the priest
B - vs 2-3: compassion of the priest
C - vs 4: calling of the priest
C’ - vs 5-6: calling of Jesus
B’ - vs 7: compassion of Jesus
A’ - vs 8-9: commitment of Jesus
A - vs 1: commitment
B - vs 2-3: compassion
C - vs 4: calling
C’ - vs 5-6: calling
B’ - vs 7: compassion
A’ - vs 8-9: commitment
The first four verses describe for us the function of a priest as the Old Testament describes the priesthood in these three ways.
(1) The priest is someone who has commitment—meaning, the priest has responsibilities to accomplish.
(2) The priest is someone who possesses a character of compassion for the people being served.
(3) The priest is someone who is called and assigned and appointed to the position of being a priest among the people.
Then verses five through nine work backward through that same outline, this time applying each one of them to Jesus.
(3) Jesus is a priest who is called—appointed by the Heavenly Father as a priest forever.
(2) Jesus is a priest who is compassionate—offering fervent cries and tears as intercessory petitions for the people.
(1) Jesus is a priest who is committed to accomplish the work on behalf of the people—providing himself as the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the people.
commitment — task of the priest to be the representative for the people on their behalf before God
First (and last) the commitment of Jesus as the priest.
It was the task of the priest to be the representative for the people on their behalf before God.
The people of Old Testament Israel could not make intercession for their sins on their own.
It was the role and responsibility of the priests to do that work of intercession for the people.
The priests would stand in the place of the people before God.
In this way, priests serve as mediators—they go between God and the people as representatives of the people.
Side note: the role of prophet is reverse of this.
The prophet is the one who represents God to the people.
And Jesus does this too.
But as mentioned, Hebrews is not concerned about focusing on the prophetic work of Jesus, only the priestly work of Jesus.
compassion — the priest not only came before God on behalf of God’s people, but also as one of God’s people
Second (in the middle) the compassion of Jesus as the priest.
In the Old Testament, there were rules for how the priest was supposed to purify himself before he could offer the sacrifices to make atonement for the people.
This means that the priest not only came before God on behalf of God’s people, but also as one of God’s people.
When Jesus came and took on that function of high priest, he fulfilled this atonement by not only bearing his sacrifice on behalf of us, but as one of us.
I have mentioned several times that while I was a seminary student living in Kalamazoo, my part-time job along with school was serving as a staff chaplain at Bronson Hospital in Kalamazoo.
I had countless opportunities during those years to sit beside the beds of hospital patients.
But at that time, I did not really know what it was like to be in their place.
Then in 2015 I got sick, and I had the experience of tests and waiting and procedures and surgeries and hospital stays.
Before that time, sure I had compassion for the people I would visit in the hospital, but once I myself lived through the experience of being the one laying in the hospital bed, the compassion became different.
Jesus has a compassion that does not only know about our struggles, he has a compassion that has lived through those struggles himself.
calling — Jesus did not grab onto the glory himself - rather, it was given to him
Third, the calling of Jesus as the priest.
Christ the Son has been appointed as the savior by the heavenly Father.
Knowing that the one who brings salvation to all God’s people would be elevated to the highest level of worship and honor, Jesus did not grab onto this glory himself.
Rather, it was given to him.
Jesus received this assignment as a calling—just as the priests of the Old Testament had done.
we will look more closely at Melchizedek next week
Let me take a moment to call out a few features in this passage that might need a little further explanation.
One of these I’m going to punt away for another time; the other one we’ll deal with.
Twice in this passage is the mention of something called the ‘order of Melchizedek.’
What is the order of Melchizedek and how does that apply to Jesus?
We’re going to have to hold onto that question because it will come up again later in Hebrews when we get to chapter 7. We will look more closely at Melchizedek next week; I won’t say anything more about that today.
The other confusing feature in this passage is in verses 8-9 which seems to suggest that Jesus was not always eternally obedient and perfect, but had to learn how to become perfect.
Greek manthano = “learn” — to experience
Jesus came into this world in order to experience perfect obedience on our behalf
Greek teleios = “perfect” — brought to completion
reference to the completion of Christ’s priestly task to atone for the sins of God’s people on the cross
A better understanding of a few Greek words is helpful here.
The Greek word manthano is translated into our English Bibles as ‘learn.’
But the nuance of this word means to learn by experience.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9